This course will explore the impact of the central forces of 21st century globalisation – transnational capitalism, border-crossing electronic media, and mass human movements – on the popular cultures of mainland Southeast countries, in particular Thailand and Singapore.  Key issues in globalisation studies will be introduced, in particular debates on the extent to which rapidly expanding market economies and transnational capitalism  have replaced the historical role of the state as key drivers of cultural change in Southeast Asia.  A central  question posed in this course is whether globalisation leads to a homogenising Westernisation of Asian cultures, or alternatively, the emergence of distinctively new forms of local cultural difference in the region. This course will relate the empirical details of Southeast Asian popular cultures to Euro-American critical theory, and ask whether the critical theory used in cultural studies has value in studies of Asia. The course will be divided into four thematic units:

Theories of Cultural Globalisation: Anti Western critiques of Americanisation, Disneyfication, and McDonaldsisation; debates about capitalism and new mass media as forces for global cultural homogenisation or local differentiation.

Buddhism, Capitalism, and 21st Century Magic: the postmodern re-enchantment of 21st century global cultures; new prosperity religions, resurgent supernaturalism, and Buddhist critiques of materialist consumerism in Thailand and Singapore

Global Queering and New lesbian, Gay and Transgender Cultures in Asia: Debates on new same-sex and transgender cultures in in Thailand and Singapore as signifying Westernisation or localisation

Globalisation and Knowledge: Debates on premodern cultural syncretism and postmodern cultural hybridity; area studies versus cultural studies as frames for knowledge of contemporary Southeast Asia.